Northern Cafe — Restaurant in Hacienda Heights

Notice! The place changed its Chinese name and menu to hand pulled noodles store. The English name is still the same.

Food: Lamb soup, skewer, and stir fried wide noodle was delicious. The meat is tender, no gamey smell. The soup was delicious, we finished all and had another bowl. The skewer is very cumin flavored, not spicy. The other clear soup is good but just scallion and cilantro flavored. The pork bun needs to be grilled longer, it's too soft. To my knowledge and preference, the buns should be almost crunchier.

Service: The management of the place needs to evaluate its priorities. While the food is delicious and we had great service as we arrived early before the dinner rush, we saw other patrons did not. The one single server was busy tending to the entire place and did not have enough time to provide the same great service to every table. One table didn't get menu or water when they sat down and had to get it themselves. Two tables didn't get water and had to remind the server for it. Two parties were waiting outside for the server to clear 2 dirty tables before they can sit down. Finally a guy from the kitchen came out to help him. Overall it's a shame because the restaurant can have great food AND...

We met up with our friends for lunch. We asked them to pick a place since they are more familiar with the area. They picked Northern Cafe because they’ve been there before and like the food.

酸辣湯 Hot and Sour Soup | $6.99 Pretty good hot and sour soup. Lots of tofu and vegetables in the soup.

小籠包 Steamed Buns Stuffed with Juicy Pork | $6.99 Steamed buns with juicy pork was good. The breading was thin, and indeed juicy inside.

三鮮水餃 Three Delicacies Dumplings | $5.99 I had one Three Delicacies Dumpling. Not sure what are the three delicacies inside. I know there’s pork…

牛肉卷餅 Beef Roll Pancake | $6.99 Beef Roll Pancake was ok. It was packed very loosely so it became a mess to eat.

蔥油餅 Fried Baked Scallion Pancake | $2.99 Love the scallion pancake. Crunchy and tasty.

鮮肉紅油炒手 Pork Wonton in Spicy Sauce | $5.99 Good spicy and garlicky sauce for the spicy pork wonton.

麻醬涼麵 Sesame Sauce Cold Noodle | $5.99 Sesame Sauce Cold Noodle was my favorite dish of the day. The sauce was creamy and garlicky. The noodle was cooked perfectly. With the crunchy cucumber all mixed together, very refreshing and delicious.

烤羊肉串 Lamb Kebabs | $4.99 Lamb kebabs was seasoned with cumin. Dr. P...

The big plus about this place is the portion is huge. One bowl of noodles is good for at least two people. Noodles were fresh and chewy in soup. The soup base was good but not the best. The cold noodles texture was too tough to eat. I love my noodles to be chewy but not too tough. The noodles in the soup had the perfect texture though. Side dish: seaweed was really good with the vinegary taste. The red oil pork tummy wasn't spicy and it was really tasty. The tofu skin had no taste and the texture was too hard. I guess the server was too busy to serve all the tables on a busy weekend, so he was a little too busy to answer questions properly.

I'll still go back to give the stir fried knife-cut noodles a try and order the side dishes...